- What you did?
We provided an introduction into digital advertisement to our fellow classmates. We tried to divide 75 minutes into 2 main sections: theory and practice. During the theoretical part, we talked about why advertising is a big topic in the modern day communicational technologies, what are the forecasts, how big companies are using it, as well as what are some of the potential risks related to our data being processed by third parties. The practical part included quick sessions on ads on Facebook and Google, as well as a quick review of two ads we posted earlier on both platforms and their data analysis tools – Facebook Analytics and Google Analytics. There are more platforms that enable digital advertisement, but based on our deep divide these two platforms seemed to have wider reach as well as a larger user base.
- Why you did it?
The topic was suggested to us by the professor and after some discussions we understood that ads are, in fact, an intriguing mode of communication. Why? Rarely we think how much thought goes into the ads by the sender and even less frequently we think about how much we influence the ads we see ourselves. That is, we might think of ads as a one-directional mode of communication with no back-and-forth feedback loops, that actually exist on every website. Therefore, we wanted to share how much deliberate decisions and details go into selecting a target audience, how these ads that are so abundant can promote goods as well as ideas and how every user sees ads that are based on their actions on the Web.
- What the goals were?
Our foremost goal was to inform people about how ad works and tell them about the backend of digital advertising. We wanted to show them exactly what the advertisers will be seeing when they put their ads up by introducing them to Google Ads and Google Analytics. To do this, we put up our own ad for our Comm & Tech website and invited the class to participate by going on the page with their phones/laptops. This allowed us to see all the data that was being collected realtime and indicate what information we would be giving everytime we were accessing an ad. Aside from this, we also presented several other platforms/tools to examine how we are targeted in ads and what data we’re giving out, such as Facebook and Google Tag Assistant. Overall, with all this information in mind, we wanted people to actively think about how they’re contributing to, and taking part in, digital advertising and some questions this entails, such as ethics and privacy issues.
- How it went?
As the first group doing the Deep Dive Lesson, we were a bit unsure about what to expect. During our initial discussions, we concluded rather quickly that we wanted to do a lesson on digital advertising. We faced mainly two concerns: 1. We wanted to make sure our session was interactive, and 2. We needed to make sure we didn’t run out of time. We addressed these two concerns by adding several discussion topics and interactive elements, and allocating a set amount of time for each topic. On the day, the session went really well – the class was engaged throughout, and several people became more aware about digital advertising.
References
- Analytics: https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/?utm_source=demoaccount&utm_medium=demoaccount&utm_campaign=demoaccount#/report/visitors-overview/a54516992w87479473p92320289/
- GDPR-
- More about Google ads categories – here.